Electronic Manufactures in Massachusetts Need to Compulsorily Recycle Old Products

With the number and diversity of electronic goods in the market rising day by day and the life span of such goods decreasing steadily, the amount of waste that is produced through electronics is increasing. Consequently, a bill was endorsed in Massachusetts, which requires electronic manufacturers to recycle old products that their customers dispose.

The Bill on Recycle Old Products in Massachusetts

The bill endorsed recently by the legislative committee has mandated the recycling of old discarded electronic products by their manufacturers. This would be effective as soon as the hearing on the bill is over and the legislature passes it. A lot of electronics companies already voluntarily reprocess the products sold by them because they believe it promotes further recycling; but a lot more of them still complain that such regulations come down hard on the companies, as reprocessing the products is too costly.

According to the Chairperson of legislative action at Massachusetts Sierra Club, mandatory recycling would create more jobs than mere disposal of waste. He also says that hardly anyone takes advantage of the garbage collection facilities in their area, but trashes their electronic waste instead. People of Massachusetts currently pay a fee to dispose their electronic goods through the municipality garbage collection programs. Massachusetts Products Stewardship Council’s Coordinator, Lynne Pledger is of the view that the mandatory recycling would enable the people to dispose their wastes for free. She says the Council is in favor of the regulation. Matthew Beaton, State Representative of R Shrewsbury, however, fears that all these costs of recycling would ultimately penalize the customers through product costs.

The Advantages of Promoting Eco Friendly Promotional Items and Recycle Old Products

For many years, regulations that mandate eco friendly promotional items and make recycling compulsory for the manufacturers have failed to get authorization from the Legislature. According to Senator Marc Pacheco, multinational companies already meet the terms of recycling laws in other states and also in the European Union. As such, he sees no reason for Massachusetts not to do the same.

Panasonic already has 20 e-waste collection locations in Massachusetts and 1800 of them nationwide. They have already collected 80 million pounds of e-waste and have reused much of it in producing eco friendly promotional items. All the electronic goods that are thrown out may not be completely useless. They may have parts left in them, which are still in a favorable working condition. Collecting these items and salvaging these parts not only frees the earth off garbage and landfills, but also saves the money that the company would otherwise have to spend on creating these parts from scratch.